Using Ex Vivo Tumoroids To Predict Immunotherapy Response In NSCLC

Description

Non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC), which accounts for approximately 85% of all lung cancer cases, remains the leading cause of cancer death worldwide. Immunotherapy such as using immune checkpoint inhibitors (ICIs) to target the programmed death-1 and its ligand (PD-1/L1) has revolutionized our management of this deadly disease.

However, a large proportion of patients do not derive benefit due to primary, adaptive or acquired resistance. Hence, better identifying this patient population, understanding the resistance mechanism and exploring novel combinations with current SOC immunotherapy are urgently needed to continue to benefit our NSCLC patients.

The investigators hypothesize that patient-derived immune cell containing ex-vivo tumoroids could serve these purposes. In this study, the investigators plan to develop such a 3D ex-vivo system utilizing fresh biopsied tissue from NSCLC patients. The investigators plan to prospectively evaluate the value of these ex-vivo tumoroids in immunotherapy naive advanced/metastatic NSCLC patients who will be receiving anti-PD-1/L1 (with or without anti-CTLA-4) per standard-of-care.